


Like Lovers

by agent0hio, Cosmicobit



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale has a lot of observational experience, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley absolutely claims he has some experience, First Time, Flying, M/M, Snowed In, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), blushing virgin bottom Crowley, brief humerous interlude in Tadfield, cold blooded crowley, cold blooded problems, cuddling for warmth, he does not, teenage antichrist problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 02:23:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent0hio/pseuds/agent0hio, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosmicobit/pseuds/Cosmicobit
Summary: “Too cold for this time of year,” Aziraphale said, taking Crowley’s arm, and what he meant was, “I know you get cold easily and I love getting a chance to fuss over you like this.” That worked just fine as a segue for Crowley, who was still working through the fact that he’d just strongly, falsely implied to Aziraphale that he’d been fucking humans all this time, and that Aziraphale now wanteddetails.Or,It's been a year since the end of the world. The Antichrist has discovered the exquisite pain of preteen social media drama. Crowley and Aziraphale still have some things to figure out.





	Like Lovers

Hail and snow tore at Crowley’s wings, sending black feathers whirling off into the endless white storm. A savage updraft yanked him skyward, ripping his sunglasses off his face. Blinding snow hit his eyes.

“_ Aziraphale!” _he shouted, “Where the heaven did you—” a building suddenly appeared out of the swirling white, and he banked wrenchingly hard, feathers skimming a sharp corner. He tried to climb above the landscape of London. 

_ “ _If I die like a pigeon hitting a window, I will never—” he cut diagonally against the wind, trying to stay pointed towards Tadfield— “ever, forgive you!” 

**ONE HOUR EARLIER**

“That’s embarrassing,” Crowley said. “Just watching, I’m embarrassed for them. Oh, look at that. He’s got to be ruining her makeup.” 

“Nobody’s making you look,” Aziraphale chided. “They’re _ young. _They’re just celebrating the gift of being alive—”

“By ruining other people’s picnic lunches—”

“—Of knowing and being known by another soul. Although, that’s— yes, that _ is _ messy. That’s a bit much. Too horizontal for a family venue, I should think.” 

The sharp afternoon sun glinted off the lake’s water. Autumn was coming in fits and starts; yesterday had been warm, but today the air was sharp and chilly despite the sun. On the opposite shore, some young people were still going at it, in full view of families, children, entities both ethereal and occult, and at least a few agents of world powers. A year after Armageddon, and all of it was still here. Crowley was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Lucifer’s fist to burst through the ground, feel around for Crowley, and then drag him back under by the ankle. But every day he found himself a little less worried. 

He and Aziraphale didn’t contrive reasons to meet anymore. They’d both just stuck around. There weren’t any assignments or agendas, and there weren’t even any Great Plans to worry about. They were free to go anywhere, do anything, and Crowley was still figuring that out. He supposed he was afraid of what might happen if he asked, one day, _ Angel, what’s your plan? What do you want to do with the rest of time? _He might chase way this closeness for good. And Crowley had rather liked how this past year had been, hadn’t he? Maybe it wasn’t worth pushing for anything more. Maybe they’d stay just like this for a few millennia, if it suited Aziraphale.

“—And I just don’t know if it would be worth all the trouble,” Aziraphale finished saying, and then, when Crowley didn’t answer, added, “Crowley, are you all there?” 

Crowley hadn’t realized he’d just been sort of _ gazing _at Aziraphale without hearing a thing. Aziraphale was trying to look at him with earnest concern— except he wasn’t hiding that smug little smile as well as he thought. 

“Yes, it’s, uh, totally worth it, of course,” he agreed, wondering what they were talking about. 

“So you _ have _done it, then!” exclaimed Aziraphale. Crowley was still desperately groping for the lost thread of the conversation. 

“Yes, of course,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Of course I’ve done—” he followed Aziraphale’s gaze; the angel was looking back at the exhibitionist couple—“_ that _. I’m a demon, angel.” He looked at Aziraphale over the top of his sunglasses. “I’ve done things you can’t even imagine,” he added, lying with the hope of scandalizing Aziraphale a little. 

A few flakes of snow were drifting down. Behind Aziraphale, Crowley saw the young exhibitionists sit up, shivering. He hadn’t even had to miracle that up himself. 

He didn’t get the mortified silence he was expecting. To his terror, Aziraphale lit up at his answer, eyes twinkling conspiratorially.

“Well do tell, dear boy! I’ve been party to some rather… exquisite things myself. It’s really too bad you missed the nineteenth century.”

Crowley’s brain hiccupped.

That wasn't how this was supposed to go. This was _ Aziraphale the angel, _for Satan's sake— he did his level best to keep a straight face, aware that words were refusing to come out of his mouth.

This conversation had leapt off the rails, and was now suspended in the air, waiting to become an enormous disaster. 

A serendipitously-timed icy gust of wind hit them both, and Crowley saw his chance to escape. He shuddered, drawing in on himself, looking as cold and forlorn as possible. Aziraphale’s brow furrowed as he looked Crowley over. 

“Too cold for this time of year,” he said, taking Crowley’s arm, and what he meant was, “I know you get cold easily and I love getting a chance to fuss over you like this.” That worked just fine as a segue for Crowley, who was still working through the fact that he’d strongly implied to Aziraphale that he’d been fucking around with humans all this time, and that Aziraphale now wanted _ details. _

“Rain check at my place?” Crowley offered. Aziraphale smiled.

**NOW**

Crowley tumbled through the storm like a sock in the dryer, unable to see through the twisting white. He wasn’t sure which way was up. He could feel the energy radiating out from Tadfield, but it wasn’t enough to orient with. Whatever supernatural power was behind this weather, it seemed almost capable of turning him back. For the first time, he felt real fear. They needed to get to the kid. He was at the center of this. If they couldn’t help Adam, he truly didn’t know what would happen. 

A flicker in the distance caught his eye. He saw a distant glow of light that pierced the storm, a light that his human eyes couldn’t see. He had never seen anything like it before, but he honed in on it instinctively. It felt like _ home. _He flung himself after it, face burning numb, wings and shoulders screaming. 

He fought the air, cutting one way back and forth against the buffeting wind with ice-matted wings. The light seemed to fade the closer he got, and then all of a sudden it was gone, lost to blinding curtains of ice and snow.

“Ah, bless it!” he snarled, in the second before he saw glimpsed Aziraphale up ahead. He powered on, struggling to catch up.

"Aziraphale!" He howled, the words mostly lost to the wind. "What are we doing_ ? _"

"Going to Tadfield!" Aziraphale managed to sound peeved while shouting over the gale, arms tight across his chest in a way that made him look cold _ and _peevish. Freezing rain pelted their faces. 

"And? What are we going to do, flap Hell to death?"

"We don’t know it’s Hell! Surely, it's something with Adam, though, and we can't just _ leave _him out there."

"I'm not saying we leave him!" Crowley protested, a little offended.

"Well, what are you saying?!"

Crowley hit a low-pressure pocket and dropped away from Aziraphale like a stone, wings flailing before he got lift again and caught up to the angel.

"I'm _ saying… I'm saying… _I'm saying it's cold, alright?" 

**EARLIER**

They settled into their usual pattern in Crowley’s living room. Over the past year, some of Aziraphale’s things had migrated over here, and Aziraphale had left a book last time which he opened while Crowley pretended that he wasn’t still hung up on their earlier conversation while he fetched a bottle of wine. When they’d only met a few times a year, they had gotten drunk just about every time. It had seemed necessary to get a conversation going. Added a layer of plausible deniability for all parties. Now that they saw each other every evening, they didn’t always bother. Miracling oneself sober was just such a blessed pain (though Crowley acknowledged that it beat the alternative).

Instead, they both just sat around savoring the vintages they both so enjoyed. It did something odd to Crowley, drinking without an agenda. It felt so… domestic. Very un-demonic. He swirled the wine in his glass and couldn’t help but wonder about those _ exquisite _experiences Aziraphale had mentioned. 

Exquisite _ how, _ exactly? Surely he couldn't mean… He was so damn _ prim _, after all. Not that he didn't love his creature comforts but, well. Sushi and sex could only be so comparable, couldn't they? 

He agonized over this internally, doing an admirable job of keeping his mouth shut. For quite a while. Several glasses, in fact, until he thought to look at the title on the book’s spine. Aziraphale had an embarrassingly fond look on his face. Crowley looked between the biography and Aziraphale’s dreamy expression several times, and then a revelation smacked into him.

"You don't mean _ Oscar Wilde _?" he blurted. Aziraphale looked up, blinking and properly bewildered.

"What’s wrong with Oscar Wilde—?"

"No, no, nothing wrong with him but you, and _ experiences _, and the 1800s— did you—” Crowley struggled to slow himself down— “Did you... fuck Oscar Wilde?"

**NOW**

As the Crowley flies, the journey to Tadfield should’ve been pretty quick. Should have been. Time had dilated to excruciating, indeterminate lengths. His wings were almost too iced up to work at all. He forced them through the air with faltering strokes. Aziraphale came and went from his vision, wings beating just as desperately. 

He was breathing in ragged gasps of cold air that scorched his lungs. 

They’d hoped Adam’s powers would fade, that he truly would become normal. He was such a good kid. He deserved to grow up happy and human. Evidently not: cold like this could only come from Hell. Crowley couldn’t feel his wings and wasn’t sure if they were still there.

“Air base’ll probably shoot us down anyways,” he said hoarsely, to no one. Aziraphale was too far ahead to hear. He was headed straight for the Young family residence. As they drew close, the energy wasn’t just something he could glimpse as a smell or a feeling; now it was all around them, thick in the air. It wasn’t as evil as he expected— it was just _ miserable. _And it wanted Crowley and Aziraphale to KEEP OUT.

As those words formed in Crowley’s head, Aziraphale fell from the sky, punted towards the roofs below by some kind of vengeful downdraft. Crowley folded into a dive a half-second later.

“No, no, no,” snarled Crowley, hurtling downwards, arms outstretched. Aziraphale was not allowed to go and hurt himself after dragging Crowley through all of _ this. _

The plan was to grab Aziraphale and set them both down gently. He realized at the last second he was coming in a little too hot. He hit Aziraphale as much as grabbed him, knocking them both head over wings through the air. Crowley snapped his wings out. The sudden resistance jerked his wings and slowed them a bit, but all at once he was just too dizzy and his wings wouldn’t move fast enough, and the snowdrifts raced up to meet them.

The deep powder swallowed them both with a muffled _ whump. _

**EARLIER**

If Aziraphale were a little less disconcerted, he might look delighted. 

"Good— _ gracious, _my dear, no. I did no such thing. I rather preferred to be a part of the audience, if you must know. Not that he and I didn’t move in the same circles, but . . ."

He probably kept talking. Crowley wasn’t listening. He was more concerned for the moment with why exactly he'd thought it would be a good idea to ask that. Why would it ever matter? His thoughts skittered this way and that. _ Audience _?

At that moment, something in space and time gave an awful lurch. For a millisecond Crowley thought he was being cosmically punished for his line of thought. But whatever was wrong was not just in the flat, not just with the warmth in Aziraphale's face with that book in his hands, not just the cold snap outside. It smelled.

Crowley had gone tense and still. Aziraphale frowned.

"What is it? Crowley?"

Crowley shushed him so he could smell better.

"Something's not right," he said.

"How do you mean?"

"I mean… Brimstone. Something on the air. Something's off about this weather."

He watched Aziraphale blanche as their eyes met. Here was the reckoning. Here was Lucifer, coming up to have a word. Crowley went and opened the blinds on the window overlooking London, and with a jolt he realized he couldn’t see the city. He couldn’t see anything but swirling white, with lights flickering in and out of view in the distance. Cold snap indeed.

“... _ Bugger,” _said Aziraphale emphatically. 

Crowley was trying to get a direction on that smell of Hell and misery sliding across multiple dimensions. He could feel leylines shivering and twitching.

“Is this your people?” Aziraphale asked. 

“You think they’d tell me? Oh, hey, Crowley, how’s it going? We’re doing great, thanks, we’re just _ waiting ‘ _til we’ve figured out how to kill you since the first go didn’t work! Well, by the way, we’ve got this great bloody storm comin’ up, so here’s the weather briefing—” 

He stopped. He could see the plume of demonic energy in his mind’s eye now. A great swirling vortex of snow, ice, and pain. His heart sank.

“It’s in Tadfield,” he told Aziraphale, materializing his car keys in his hand. Adam had just started the new school year. He’d taught Dog how to lie down and roll over when he pointed a finger gun at him and yelled _ bang. _He had texted the video to Crowley, exhorting him to make sure Aziraphale saw it also. 

Crowley had already raced to the door when Aziraphale called after him.

“Crowley, your car is _ buried, _” he said. “There’s about four feet on the ground now.” 

Crowley threw up his arms. 

“It’s been through worse! What do you have in mind, snowshoes?” 

They couldn’t just miracle themselves there. Attracting more attention from above and below towards Tadfield would only make things worse. Aziraphale just smiled.

“You have wings, my dear,” said the angel, his own wings shimmering out into view. A sudden freezing blast of air hit Crowley. Aziraphale turned towards the window, which was miraculously missing its glass, and delicately stepped out of the window. His white wings vanished into the blizzard and then he was gone. 

. _ Should’ve sprung for double glazing, _Crowley thought in spite of himself.

“Aw, no, wait— Aziraphale—” Crowley protested, knocked back by another gust of wind. That cold cut straight through him. He paced, watching snow melt onto his carpet. “We can just— we could— oh, bless it—” He screwed his eyes shut and ran at the window, snapping his wings out as he cleared the frame. He barely remembered to put the glass back before the wind caught his wings. 

**NOW.**

For a second they were both motionless, limbs and wings entangled, white feathers in Crowley’s numb face. They were both breathing hard—Crowley was stunned by the sheer physicality of what had just happened. He avoided exerting his corporation as a general rule. He wasn’t used to his heart racing and his muscles burning, his body reacting like the living animal it was. And he wasn’t used to the burning warmth of Aziraphale pressed so close.

Aziraphale’s wings vanished. He struggled free of Crowley’s stiffening, uncooperative limbs, and then dragged Crowley up out of the snow, more or less setting him upright on his feet. Crowley let him; he wasn’t doing so great at moving on his own. What was left of his strength was bleeding away into the cold. 

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that,” Aziraphale said, brow furrowed and face flushed bright red from the cold, and something in Crowley’s chest ached a little. Aziraphale brushed snow off Crowley’s shoulders and out of his hair. “I would’ve been fine.”

Crowley shrugged. It took all his effort. “I’m better at falling,” he said.

They picked their way from their crater in the snow towards the Youngs' house. Snow was up to the eaves of the smaller homes. They could have settled nicely in the drift outside of Adam's window and been at eye level with it were the snow a little denser. 

Aziraphale cut through the snow with considerably less effort than Crowley, miraculously unhampered. Crowley stumbled behind, rigid and awkward with cold, trying to get his frozen wings stuffed back into another dimension. The wind was still beating at them, but Crowley couldn’t sense any other demons here. Other than the subliminal taint of sulfur in the air, there was nothing hellish here _ at all _. The houses were dark and quiet, but in a mundane, power-outage kind of way. Candlelight glimmered from within frosted windows.

“Angel! What’s the plan, here?” he hissed at Aziraphale, but then they were up the front steps of the Young house. The front door swung open and Mr. Young was looking at him, perplexed, and Crowley turned to look imploringly at Aziraphale and the angel was _ gone. _

If it had been only been, say, twenty degrees warmer, Crowley would’ve been quick enough to notice Aziraphale miracle his way out of Mr. Young’s perception and slip up the stairs towards Adam’s room. As it stood, he was still slowly putting the pieces together when Mr. Young said,

“Ah, Mr... Crowley? Is everything alright?”

Adam’s tweaking and twisting of reality had installed Crowley and Aziraphale as godfathers with some ancient, if vague, tie to the family. (This was basically already true.) The change still caught them all by surprise sometimes. Crowley knew that he just needed to give Mr. Young a reassuring answer for why he’d shown up without ringing ahead in the middle of an unprecedented weather event. He’d been lying to people for six thousand years. Should be easy. 

“Hey, yeah, uh… have you, ah…” Stop. Try again. Need to find words. Too cold for words. “...Anything... odd happen recently? With…” he pointed vaguely up and to the right of Mr. Young’s head, towards Adam’s room. 

Mr. Young followed Crowley’s gesture upwards. 

“Oh, you mean this weather? Absolutely insane. Did your car get stuck out there? I saw on the news that they’re declaring a state of emergency before the power went out.”

“Yes,” Crowley said, and then after a beat, “car’s stuck. _ That’s _why I’m here.” 

Somewhere upstairs, Aziraphale was attempting to defuse an emotional twelve-year-old warhead with world-ending power. A blast of energy hit Crowley point-blank, telling all celestial entities to K E E P O U T. And it wanted Aziraphale, more specifically, to STAY OUT OF MY ROOM, YOU’RE NOT MY MOM. Crowley rubbed his temples. Psychically, the kid had a good set of lungs. 

“So… where’s Adam? He’s got to be home in all this.” 

Mr. Young sighed. “He’s having a bit of angst, we think. Normally he’d be downstairs saying hello, but he hasn’t come down all day.”

“_ A bit _ of angst _ ,” _Crowley echoed.

“We tried to ask him more about it, but he was upset, so we’re... giving him space?” said Mr. Young, as if he was repeating something someone else had told him. “Do you know what… Snapchat is? Deidre tried explaining it...” 

“I’ve an idea,” said Crowley wearily. 

“Well, there was this girl from his school on there, and she messaged him, and he messaged her back, but then she opened his message and didn’t say anything for two days, and then there was this _ other _girl, and I don’t know what all they said to each other but...” 

A cavalcade of small feet thundered down the stairs— the kids from the air base, sans their glorious leader. They sized Crowley up, apparently unimpressed.

“He’ll be fine,” the girl said. “We’ve talked to him.” She said it with such grown-up assuredness that Crowley had to laugh, and her eyes narrowed. Both of the boys stepped away from her instinctively. 

"He doesn't need _ you, _ " she continued firmly, glowering in a way a twelve year old had no right to be able to glower. In another life this child would have been an exorcist second to none. "You should go away. This has nothing to do with _ you. Either _of you." As if to support her claim, that GET OUT feeling surged over him again, and from somewhere behind him, he could have sworn he heard something heavy hit the snow.

“He didn’t mean to muck up the weather,” said the smaller boy earnestly. “He just didn’t wanna hafta go to school cos he was crying and—” the taller, scruffy-looking boy thumped him with an elbow. 

“He didn’t _ actually _ cry!” the boy corrected himself, and then added, “He’s not messing with it anymore. It should go away on its own, I reckon.”

The girl planted her hands on her hips, her expression daring him to question them. "I said—" she begins.

"Young lady," Mr. Young warned. He appeared more concerned with the girl’s manners than the references to his son controlling the weather. The girl carried on.

"It's not _ that _ type of problem," she huffed. "You two will only make it worse."

"Two?" Mr. Young remarked, distracted again. "Oh, is Mr. Fell here, too?"

"He's, ah, with the car," Crowley managed. He was starting to understand the girl's drift: it wasn't a Hell kind of problem. It was… A pubescent boy problem, _ for Someone's sake, _with a little antichrist flourish.

"Maybe I should," Crowley added lamely, sure he could hear muffled shouting from the yard now, "go and check on Aziraphale."

"Do you two need a place to stay?" Mr. Young offered. Behind him, the girl glared a warning. Crowley had not seen fiercer eyes in all of Hell.

“Because Anathema and Newt are off on some kind of sabbatical… something about a pan-occultist summit, or something. Anyways, they left us their spare key in case a pipe burst. I’ll phone them, but I’m sure they won’t mind you two staying around until they dig out the roads.” He chortled. “Look at us. It’s like we’re planning an Arctic expedition. In _ England! _This climate change really is quite a thing.”

Mr. Young dipped back inside, returning with a house key. Crowley could barely force a frozen hand open to take it. 

“Take care, then!” said Mr. Young, sounding only a little confused by the whole encounter.

He might have to kill Aziraphale for this, Crowley thought as he shuffled back down the driveway, limbs barely working. He glanced around furtively— the furtive part being pure reflex— trying to find Aziraphale, hoping Adam hadn’t spiked him onto another plane of being or something. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale burst out of a snowdrift. “There you are! I think the boy’s alright. Look, the wind’s already settling down.” Crowley squinted at him.

“Did he put you in there?” 

“Er, put me in what—” 

“In all that snow… You were upstairs, an’ then— I heard a thud—”

“—yes, well, I don’t know that he _ meant _to—”

“Oh, he _ meant _to, Aziraphale—”

“—Not that it matters now. I think the world is safe for today. And neither of us is getting smited, er, smote? Smitten?"

“You just got... smited... right out a window, angel!” 

That made them both laugh, and all of a sudden Aziraphale pulled him into a tight hug, face against Crowley’s shoulder. 

“I really thought we were in trouble there for a moment,” he said without letting Crowley go. 

Crowley was half-frozen to death. That had to be why Aziraphale seemed so impossibly warm. That was why he found himself relaxing into the embrace, despite how rarely they touched, even in this last year of so many changes. That was why he was almost regretful when Aziraphale let him go, bouncing forward down the path. The cold rushed back into the space where the angel had been.

To Crowley’s horror, Aziraphale unfolded his wings again. 

Crowley just shook his head. “No way, angel, I’m done… Here, I’ve a key. For... the witch’s cottage.” 

Aziraphale pursed his lips and gave Crowley the infuriating look he usually reserved for persistent customers. Crowley found he was too tired to be bothered. He just held out the key.

After a second Aziraphale pried the key out of his frozen hand and put a hand on his shoulder, steering him through the snowdrifts. Ice had frozen his clothes stiff against him, and everything was aching-numb. He’d learned millennia ago that his corporations didn’t do well with this sort of thing. Now that the excitement was over, he was fully feeling the effects of the cold.

“This corporation... isn’t gonna make it,” he managed, hating how slowed-down his voice was getting. Sounded stupid. “Gonna freeze it to death… _ again… _ and for… for… _ schoolyard drama…” _

He was barely aware of his feet moving. The world was white and blurred and burning like frostbite. He heard Aziraphale’s voice occasionally.

All at once he was stumbling to a halt in a doorway. Aziraphale tried to tug him inside, and he staggered back as if he’d hit one of those glass doors, blinking at the sudden burning ache in his head and chest. The pain woke him up a little and he looked up above the door. 

“Ziraphale,” he groaned, having lost all panache to the cold, “get rid of it.” Aziraphale stepped back out and sighed when he saw the horseshoe. 

“For Heaven’s sake,” he muttered. “You demons are so bloody _ sensitive.” _It didn’t even take a miracle for him to pull it down and toss it away, which made the whole thing even more embarrassing.

“They’re not... gonna give me... a new body,” he muttered as Aziraphale shepherded him inside.

“Ssh. Heat’s off in here. I’ll get a fire started. You’ll be fine.”

Aziraphale led him into the living room, where an empty hearth waited. The cottage was starkly empty.

“They’ve put everything into storage, I suppose,” he heard Aziraphale saying. Crowley leaned against the wall, trying not to crumple and sink down onto the cold hardwood. He realized he was shivering, and couldn’t seem to stop. Aziraphale tried to open the flue, and snow came tumbling out of the fireplace. Aziraphale turned towards Crowley, at least having the decency to look apologetic. 

“Oh, _ here,” _ he said, and suddenly his arms were full of blankets. “Sit down, Crowley. Nevermind the fire.” Crowley didn’t object as Azirphale draped a blanket over his shoulders, and sat himself down next to the useless fireplace. Bleeding antichrist tantrums and it having to be _ cold _… His eyes closed.

It was in a fog that he became aware of Aziraphale shaking him gently. Crowley grunted. The angel had sat down next to him, and he had a viciously worried look on his face. He was pressing his hand against Crowley's cheek. He must have been saying something, because his mouth was moving, but it took a moment for the sound to register.

"Crowley? Crowley? Don’t drift off just yet. I remember that time in 1635. Oh, and your coat’s soaked through, too,” the angel added reproachfully. Aziraphale frowned as his hand traced from Crowley’s cheek down his jaw and down his neck. Crowley leaned into the heat. It wasn’t that his human body generated no heat at _ all _going about its business of being a body, it just wasn't… enough. Clearly.

"How’s your skin s’warm?" Crowley asked resentfully, a little slurred. Aziraphale's expression brightened again.

"Oh, that would do it," he said. 

Aziraphale pulled his hand away, which Crowley grumbled about, and started working on the buttons of his coat for some reason. 

“You’ll need to get your wet clothes off. Your lips are _ blue. _May I?” Crowley just nodded as Aziraphale tugged his coat off. The angel pulled his own shirt off and gestured for Crowley to do the same. His fingers wouldn’t catch the fabric, however, and so he sat there rather stupidly in his wet shirt until Aziraphale, now bare-chested, sighed and wrestled it over his head for him. As soon as he had, the angel pulled him close, clammy wet skin held tight to his own warmth. 

"Come on now. Let's get you skin to skin." 

Aziraphale snapped his fingers and Crowley found himself wrapped in soft, dry blankets, drenched trousers and shoes absent. He couldn’t stop himself from sighing a little with relief. Aziraphale sat with him in the pile of blankets and pulled Crowley tightly into his chest again, rubbing his stiff back. Unconsciously, Crowley grabbed hold of Aziraphale’s bare shoulders and pressed his face into the crook of his neck. Finally, some warmth. 

“Oh, my dear…” Aziraphale’s hand ran through his hair. Then down his back. Then came to rest on his thigh. Distantly, Crowley felt a flutter of some emotion, some response from deep within him. But it was all too vague to figure out right now. He wasn’t worried about it. The steady rise and fall of Aziraphale’s chest against his own was more real and secure than his scattering of thoughts. The tension he’d been carrying slowly began to unwind. He let his eyes close, and felt Aziraphale lowering him down onto his side, still holding him close.

They must have laid there for some time, with Crowley drifting hazily in and out of sleep. He gradually came to the conclusion that he was not, in fact, going to freeze to death yet again. His heart beat out a slow, steady rhythm that echoed in his skull. 

Aziraphale said something in his ear, all hot air on his skin—something about the wind outside dying down… Crowley just sighed, enjoying the warmth.

His next thought was something along the lines of _ what’s that bloody light _, before realizing that the fire had been willed to life successfully at last.

“There,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley could detect the smug smile in his voice, “that will do it.”

Crowley wrapped his arms tighter around the angel’s shoulders. Funny, so much touching, so much _ skin _… 

The more he warmed up the more aware of that he became. Little details, like the texture of Aziraphale’s legs—rather less hairy than Crowley’s own—and the soft weight of his thigh on top of Crowley’s where their legs tangled together. He was very soft, the angel, all gentle give and supple skin, slightly plump and so very, very warm. It was pleasant, for all its unfamiliarity. He’d been in Aziraphale’s body to pull off the hellfire stunt, yes, but he’d never really… _ felt _it, before. That had never been their way. A hand held there, a little kiss on the cheek there, but never this. This was… they were… 

Bless it, but they were so… 

“We’re naked,” he blurted. Aziraphale hummed in agreement. 

“Well, yes. You were freezing.”

“Yes, no, but—” Crowley sat up and the blankets slid to his hips and somehow that was not at all better.

“But?” Aziraphale asked, also sitting up, looking innocent enough with his brows raised high on his forehead.

“It’s so… so…” 

“What, my dear?”

“Human,” he finally sputtered. 

“Well, corporeal bodies have certain needs, and time-honored ways of meeting them. I’ve had to revive a few frostbitten humans in my time. You were frigid in your clothes, and the blankets weren’t helping at all, and well, it seemed—”

“Angel.”

“Oh, yes?”

There were a lot of words caught in his throat. What he managed was: “You couldn’t miracle my clothes dry?”

“Of course I could,” Aziraphale had the presence of mind to at least look offended, “but you barely produce any heat of your own, darling. I wasn’t sure that would really be sufficient.”

“So, now we’re naked.”

“Well… yes. I don’t really see what the fuss is about, though. You already look much better.”

“We’re naked, wrapped in blankets by the firelight. That's. It’s like—well—if we were human it would be, well… It's like—” he sputtered uselessly for a moment, watching a light come on in Aziraphale’s eyes, along with a soft little smile.

“Like lovers?” he offered, and Crowley’s brain froze over again. He muttered something, but it wasn’t terribly intelligible. Aziraphale’s smile widened. “Oh, I didn’t even think, but I suppose you would know.”

Crowley did _ not _ squeak. He made a noise in his throat and inhaled almost at the same time but it was _ not _ a _ squeak. _Though he did choke on the noise a little.

“Wh—yeah, right, yeah. Take my word for it, Angel, this is, if we were human… yeah, who knows where this would go,” he said, perfectly calmly, of course.

“All kinds of places, I imagine,” Aziraphale remarked, as if every word he said were not asphyxiating Crowley a little further. “As I’ve said, I only have an… observational idea of the thing, though people do seem to enjoy it.”

“O-h, yeah, well, humans, you know, love their sins. Lust, and all that. It’s very sinful. Lots of skin, and mouths, and lustful… lusting and so on, they do get… riled up by it all, I suppose.” 

“Is it _ really _worth the fuss?” Aziraphale asked, much more seriously than his passing commentary in the park, and Crowley tried valiantly to lie his way through. He stammered some combination of “well” and “depends” and “subjective, really,” which Aziraphale seemed utterly, painfully unphased by.

“Do you think,” he said, eyes shining in that way that made him look as fresh and new as Eve before she took that apple, “that… _ we’d _enjoy it?” And that was it. Crowley was speechless, flatlined, bluescreened.

Crowley was pretty good at being a demon, even if you didn’t count the embellishment he added to his reports. However, he had a habit of turning his talents against himself, rather like falling and getting stabbed by the scissors you left in your back pocket.

If you turn a motorway around the city you live in into a device of torment which taints and tempts the souls of man, you may one day get stuck in a traffic jam related to said infernal device.

If you lie convincingly to an angel about your centuries of (entirely fictional) wicked debauchery, you may one day wind up…

In _ this _ position. With Aziraphale looking right into his eyes, maybe still flushed from the cold or maybe blushing a little, still half-entangled in the blankets he’d conjured up for Crowley, with a shy, almost secretive smile playing around the corners of his mouth. Some new kind of heat raced through Crowley, jittery and strange and _ alive _, and his heart seemed to ache with something different from pain.

“It’s not impossssible,” he managed, and bless it all Aziraphale _ had _to have heard that. “People… they usually do, especially if they,” and here he stopped, because here it was. 

If he finished his sentence, laid out his feelings for Aziraphale to see, then he might have to hear Aziraphale say that he didn’t feel the same. But Aziraphale was so close and Crowley was so exposed and he felt so _ safe _in spite of that.

Aziraphale stayed carefully still. The playful air he’d put on was gone. 

“If they what?” Aziraphale pressed, gentle. 

Crowley almost jumped up and ran straight back out into the cold. They’d spent a year now, closer than ever before, and it was more than he’d ever hoped for. Yet now here he was, throwing away six thousand years of sitting at arm’s length from one another, six thousand years of building up boundaries to protect the both of them, because he just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

Crowley grabbed Aziraphale and kissed him. He didn’t really know how. He just sort of put his mouth on Aziraphale’s and hoped for the best.

There was a startled, airless moment. Crowley awaited smiting.

And then Aziraphale kissed him _ back, _with a bit more decisiveness. He could feel Aziraphale’s energy— the inhuman essence of him— crackling in the bittersweet contours of his eager, quick mouth.

They broke apart, their breathing audible under the howl of the wind outside. Crowley gaped at Aziraphale, at the little shattered glints of gold across his collarbones and shoulders. He hadn’t ever noticed it. He supposed it had been there the whole time, waiting. He reached out and touched the gold. It burned under his fingertips a little like consecrated ground. Aziraphale shivered but leaned into the touch. 

Just like that, they were kissing again. It was chaste and slow, but it went on for a few minutes, before they broke apart. And it felt _ right. _ So right. _ He hadn’t ruined anything _. He felt a little dizzy. There was a lump in his throat, an old ache he’d never let himself feel. And yet it had always been there. 

Something must have been showing on his face, because Aziraphale’s gaze softened. He pulled Crowley into a hug, one hand stroking his hair. Crowley felt the last of his barriers crumbling, which sent a jolt of giddy terror through him.

“‘M still a demon,” he said hoarsely. “You’re n’angel. Could explode.”

Aziraphale leaned back and looked at Crowley. His smile was shockingly, devastatingly wicked.

“I think I’d like that,” he said. And then he kissed him some more, leaning into Crowley's mouth—this time without reservation.

For all of Aziraphale’s crackling energy, what Crowley felt the most was the wet, human warmth of his mouth, so shockingly physical and intimate.

He was a little out of his depth here, but for just a moment he didn’t worry. Maybe there was something to be said for the experience of not knowing. Of just _ reacting _—his own tongue flicking and exploring out of instinct, letting the taste and smell of Aziraphale flood his brain, creating a fog he couldn’t think around. 

He hooked his arms around Aziraphale and rolled onto his back, dragging the angel down on top of him, thighs straddling Crowley’s hips. Aziriphale drew back, and Crowley chased after, trying to fit their lips together again, only he was excited, and breathing harder than he almost ever allowed himself to do, and his mouth was open and when he flicked his tongue against the angel’s lower lip it was forked and he found himself chasing down the scent-taste of Aziraphale again in increasingly heady doses. There were so many textures, too—the ridges of the hard palate, the enamel slide of tongue on the inside of teeth, and then, in between kisses, the sudden shock of incisors pinched shut across his lower lip. 

Crowley gasped—he couldn’t not, the little bite sent electricity through him—was that a physical feeling? It was all-over, like no one part of his body could account for it. The lightness in his head didn’t seem like it should be connected to the flash of heat in his chest, and yet… 

Aziraphale seemed to like the gasping, because he bit Crowley again immediately, and a little harder. Crowley’s breath caught, shuddering in his throat. Aziraphale’s kisses slipped away first to the corner of his mouth, then the sharp line of his jaw and then down, sliding along a tendon on his neck gone taught with adrenaline, leaving a hot trail of breath that closed into a kiss where his neck met his shoulder, and then more kisses, a line of them up his collarbone culminating in teeth closing on his shoulder. He gasped again—the sound was high and pitchy. 

He realized he was clutching Aziraphale’s shoulders with his nails digging into the skin. Could people bruise each other, doing this? Was that a feature or a glitch? He didn’t know, and his hands faltered, let go. Aziraphale pulled away and frowned.

“You don’t have to stop doing that, if you don’t want to,” Aziraphale said huskily. It took Crowley a beat to understand what he was talking about_ . _

“It doesn’t hurt you?” He sounded a little winded, he realized. 

“No—well—I do think you’re scratching me, actually, but perhaps there’s something to be said for that.” 

“You would tell me? If you didn’t like it?” Crowley asked urgently, because he was making this up as he went and part of him was still sure he was seconds from irreversible disaster.

“Of course. And you would do the same for me, if I…” he reached up and brushed his fingertips over the place where he’d bitten into Crowley’s shoulder. “If there was something you didn’t want?”

Crowley nodded.

A deceptively soft smile spread over Aziraphale’s face again. “Good. Because I do like this.” He bent and pressed his lips to Crowley’s throat. “I like this… very, very much.” He breathed the words into his skin and Crowley’s hair stood on end. 

Crowley caught his hand in that cloud of blonde curls and held Aziraphale in place, breathing instead of speaking. Harsh breathing, like he’d been running, though he was on his back in the blankets. He was aware of blood roaring in his ears like the wind outside, of how his body sang with pleasure. They were both finally here, and it was like he was awake for the first time, senses flooding with all these new things, and he wanted all of it, everything, all at once.

Pulling Aziraphale by the hair with a shaking hand, Crowley pulled him back to his mouth for a kiss. He thought he felt Aziraphale smile. He threw an arm around the angel’s waist and held him down—he was _ heavy, _all that bone and tissue, all that living chemistry. Aziraphale’s chest against his made it feel as though it should be hard to breathe. 

He bit Aziraphale’s neck gently, unsure of what he was doing, and felt the angel’s breath catch in his throat, the scent-taste of his skin filling Crowley’s head. He bit down a little more, and now Aziraphale made a startled but not unhappy noise that sent a whole new feeling jolting through Crowley. He dragged his nails down Aziraphale’s side, feeling the gentle catch of skin and the twitch of the muscle beneath.

As Crowley’s nails dragged, all of a sudden Aziraphale jerked, eyes wide and lips parted. Crowley repeated the motion, skating his nails over Aziraphale’s ribs below the armpit, and the angel shivered again, giggling in a way that would have mortified Crowley. 

Cunning glee suddenly lit up Aizraphale’s face and he jabbed Crowley in the ribs in the same spot.

A wild sensation jolted through him, forcing him to laugh in surprise. Aziraphale pressed his advantage, relentless prodding at him until Crowley was gasping with laughter, flailing about, dignity thrown to the wolves some time ago.

“Hey— no, that’s—” He couldn’t talk, he was being outmaneuvered by an angel, this could not stand, so with some some fenangling he managed to get Aziraphale on both sides at once, and the angel collapsed on top of him laughing.

“What in _ Heaven, _” Aziraphale said into Crowley’s neck, still giggling shamelessly.

“Sure, just smother me,” Crowley muttered, also grinning stupidly, because they were still just shooting the shit, still just enjoying each other’s company as they always had. 

Aziraphale recovered enough to prop himself up on his elbows and look down at Crowley with sappy fondness that he’d never get over no matter how long their lives went on. There was also still a rather un-angelic little spark in his eyes that kept Crowley taught with a nervous but keen energy. 

He kissed Crowley on the mouth again, slowly, and then moved down his neck as Crowley tilted his head back.

Aziraphale slipped away from his neck, dropping to leave kisses on his shoulder, his chest, his breastbone and down, and down, and—oh, _ someone. _Oh no. Aziraphale pressed a kiss very slowly, very deliberately, to the wing of each hip, his intent clear. And then he centered himself, and Crowley could feel hot breath on a part of himself he didn’t usually think much about and he didn’t know how to act about that and—

“Angel!” he gasped, “I lied!”

There it was.

Aziraphale stopped, raising his head to look Crowley in the eye, gaze cast across his heaving chest.

“I may have… falsely implied. That I do this a lot. That I _ have, _er, done it—” and he trailed off lamely, because Aziraphale was biting his lip like he was trying his best not to laugh. 

“Darling,” he said softly, “I _ know _that.” And then, a moment later, softer, “Do you trust me?” 

Of course he did. He nodded. Aziraphale bent his head again and laid a kiss that swallowed Crowley whole.

Crowley had gotten the hang of human senses millenia ago, or so he’d thought. Thought wrong, apparently. He was not ready for this at all. 

He gasped, made a strangled, surprised noise he couldn’t stop. The elbows he was leaning back on went jelly-weak. That he managed to get one to take his weight so his other hand could fly out to take a fistful of Aziraphale's hair was, perhaps, a minor miracle. Not that Aziraphale was a steady handhold—very slowly, he was sliding his mouth down, and down, and up, and—

Crowley made that sound again, head thrown back, back arching. As stars danced in his eyes, he thought, with remarkable presence, that millennia of human behavior, in this moment, suddenly made much more sense. Then Aziraphale's tongue curled into a sort of earnest suction, and he stopped thinking altogether.

After a bit of this, Aziraphale scooted back up to lay alongside Crowley, who was still panting and staring straight up through the ceiling like he had some pressing questions to ask the Almighty. 

“I think that this sort of thing could help settle differences between our sides,” Aziraphale observed, as if discussing a new bus route. “Fighting’s just a _ chore _, really. There’s better things to do on Earth.”

“Huh?” said Crowley. 

Aziraphale just kissed his forehead. 

"No," he mused, "perhaps you're right… Perhaps this sort of thing is just for us."

The angel settled his head on Crowley's chest, curling up around him with his palm low on Crowley's stomach. He hummed, deep in his chest, turning his face into Crowley's neck.

"You know," he murmured, "you taste divine."

Crowley wheezed, aghast, which just made the angel laugh.

"Really!" He declared, sitting upright by a little, propping himself on his elbow, with a terrible gleam in his eye, "You do. Here, try it."

He surged forward and kissed Crowley messily, pressing in with that… Debauched tongue, the gesture deep and slow and ravenous. When he pulled away, he was smirking.

"See?"

Crowley made a noise that wasn't _ not _ a word, it just didn't really mean anything.

"No? Oh, well that's just disappointing."

"S'alright," Crowley slurred, trying to think of something witty, "always preferred watching you eat, anyway."

If Crowley didn't know better, he'd have called the light that sparked Aziraphale's eyes at that comment demonic. Absolutely chuffed, he descended down Crowley's body again. He set to work immediately, with his tongue, this time, rather than his lips, not unlike he was enjoying a large ice cream cone. 

Crowley, staring into the ceiling without seeing, came dangerously close to shouting the name of something holy.

From his position between Crowley's legs, Aziraphale paused to tsk at him.

"Darling, it really ruins the segue if you don't actually watch."

Aziraphale snapped his fingers and the blankets balled up under Crowley to lift his head and shoulders. Aziraphale fixed him with a dangerous gaze, impossible not to meet, and did that thing with his tongue again.

Six thousand years of history, and this was it. This was the lewdest thing he'd ever seen. Made more potent, perhaps, because it was happening _ to him, _ that this was his body in _ Aziraphale's mouth _.

He couldn’t have dreamed of looking away.

His fingers found Aziraphale's hair again, this time at his temple, so that he was half-cradling the angel's face in his hand, as if to say _ it's not just about doing this, it's about it being with you _ . _ Angel, it was always you _.

It was all more than he could take, really.

He reached out with his other hand, gathering up Aziraphale's face to pull it back to his, and kissed him again. As hard as he could, still trying to say something there weren't quite words for.

When they separated, the slide of Aziraphale’s hand across the back of his neck made him realize that he was sweating. Aziraphale’s hair was damp as well. It suited the heaviness of their breathing and the weakness moving in waves through Crowley’s body. He locked his arms around the angel and rolled Aziraphale onto his back.

He started by kissing him, long and deep and then more aggressively, then in shallow repeated bursts, smiling into the motion while Aziraphale giggled. He moved from his mouth to his cheek to his forehead to his hair, lingering there for a moment to breathe in the smell of him. And then he dove for his ear, and bit down on the lobe of it. Aziraphale’s smile turned into a gasp. 

Well, that was good to know about. 

He tried it again, flickered his tongue a bit, and Aziraphale’s grip closed hard around his shoulders. It should have hurt, but it translated into his brain as a desirable pressure, which he returned, sliding his hands to Aziraphale’s hips and digging in. He held there while he moved to kiss his neck, to his collarbone, to his sternum, to the soft curve of his stomach. And down.

Aziraphale’s hands slid down his arms to where his fingers were digging into his hips, holding loosely to his wrists as if to keep him there. As if he could let go. Aziraphale’s arousal was right between his hands, and it was _ his turn _and—

Nothing for it, he supposed, but to do his best. 

He took Aziraphale in his mouth with his heart hammering in his ears—he was suddenly acutely aware of his own teeth. He wrapped his hand around as well, so that he could reach a little more without trying to do it all with his mouth alone. When his hand closed, Aziraphale gasped. So he gripped a little tighter, twisted his wrist very, very slightly, just to see if he could hear it again. He was rewarded immediately with a satisfied little "oh," and the sound of his name. A hand tangled in his hair as he carefully repeated the movement Aziraphale had showed him, and when the hand clenched tight in his hair he knew he was doing something right. The sounds Aziraphale made, the way his hips bucked— Crowley was causing this, giving this back to Aziraphale, and know that spread a sweet, hot pleasure through him. 

He wasn’t quite ready for what happened next. You’d think a demon would know how not to gag. He might have heard Aziraphale laugh, the bastard. It was worth it for how the angel sighed and fell back, as if completely at peace, and the hazy, glowy way he looked down at Crowley, cupping his face with both hands now. 

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and Crowley’s stomach flipped. 

“‘Course you say that _ now _,” he said, still trying to catch his breath. Now he had some momentum going. Now he had some ideas of his own. He straddled Aziraphale’s waist and Aziraphale sat up beneath him.The firelight flickered in his shining eyes. Seated like this, the tip of him stood between Crowley's legs, somewhere between an inquiry and a promise. 

Aziraphale ran his hand down Crowley's chest, his stomach, over to his hip.

They looked at each other, and it was clear that they were thinking the same exact thing. Aziraphale’s mouth quirked into a smile, and they both started laughing. This was so absurdly human, and so previously unthinkable, and now here they were anyways, frolicing about as if they’d been doing it for thousands of years. What a shame that they _ hadn’t _been. 

“I cannot believe us,” Crowley said. “I cannot believe we are even _ thinking _—”

“Are you saying you don’t want—”

“I didn’t say that,” Crowley said, with the confidence that usually only came well into a night’s drinking. The hand on his hip tightened. Aziraphale's other hand brushed between his legs, fingers sliding across skin and then, and then, _ pressing inside _ until they found a mark that sent a bolt of surprisingly sweet pressure up through Crowley's core. He gripped Aziraphale's shoulders roughly, hissing through his teeth.

This seemed to inspire the angel, because his fingers slipped free again and he shifted, guiding Crowley’s hips so he could slip inside of him. A fullness—it could have been agonizing if it didn't feel so _ good. _A high sound caught in his throat as he settled into Aziraphale's lap. The angel's eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open, blasted pupils fixed on his.

He wrapped an arm around Crowley’s waist, hand dropping in inelegant, stuttering motions from his head down his long back, and pulled tight so they came together in other places, too, like stomach to stomach and chest to chest, the motion forcing Crowley to rock forward on the length of thick flesh still inside him. What part of Aziraphale he actually grabbed onto, as a result, wasn’t clear to him so much as the fact that he sunk his fingers into flesh. He was _ absolutely _leaving bruises. And he couldn’t even care. Not with the sharp sound of a sudden, desperate breath in his ear. Not with that feeling, like pressure but sharper, finer, fuller—

Aziraphale’s other hand went from his hair to his hip, this one pushing him backward by a little bit so that he leaned away again, back into the angel’s waiting arm, and everything shifted inside him, and that felt—-it felt like— it felt _ good _and then some, too—

Aziraphale rolled his hips just so, pressing deeper, more insistently, and the strength went out of Crowley’s poor, scrambling corporation and he sank down, tucking his own hips a little as he went, like he was trying to bring Aziraphale all the way into the core of him.

A sort of open-mouthed hum came up from Aziraphale’s throat. The sound cut straight to a deep point in Crowley’s gut full of fire, and he lurched forward to kiss the angel messily. Hard on the mouth, then just off to the side, to his cheek, his jaw, his neck. Crowley bit down hard in time with the roll of Aziraphale’s hips, and that made the angel groan his name. Almost a snarl. 

He wanted to hear that again.

He rocked his body while he nipped at an ear and dragged his nails down the points on shoulders where wings could sometimes be, trying to draw the sound out again. Aziraphale only gasped in his ear. So he tried other movements, sharper ones, rougher ones. This earned him the sound of his own name, and hands settling to grip almost unkindly at his bony hips. So very thoughtless a gesture—it was gratifying, from Aziraphale. Delectable, even. 

Crowley found himself being steered into a slow, deep motion. At the bottom of each wave, Aziraphale’s body struck his just so that a bright burst of sensation shot through him, so intense his vision swam. Crowley gasped. And gasped again. And clutched at his angel, arms winding around his shoulders, hands twisting into tousled blond curls, pulling perhaps too hard—

He realized he was making a ragged, wantonly open-mouthed sound. It made Aziraphale grip him harder.

“Crowley,” he was saying, “Oh—” Crowley shuddered and the hands at his hips moved to arms around his waist that pulled them together chest to chest as they rocked. 

Crowley cried out then, shouting Aziraphale’s name, trying to sit down that much harder, to bring Aziraphale that much deeper. The angel’s grip turned rough again, and he answered by thrusting his hips upward. Crowley very nearly screamed.

They pressed helplessly like this for a few moments before Aziraphale managed to stutter something.

“May I,” he gasped, “try something?” the words all ran together, but Crowley caught enough of it to nod. As if he would have said no to anything in creation at this moment. And then Aziraphale muscled Crowley onto his back, his arms hooked under Crowley’s knees so that it was tempting to slide his legs up over his shoulders. At this new angle, Aziraphale pressed into him with rather more gusto than before. The motion knocked the breath out of him. 

“Is that alright?” Azirphale asked, expression glazed with pleasure. Crowley just hissed, “_ again.” _Hard motions. Relentless and pointed. They hit the same incendiary point in Crowley’s body that he had before, only harder and more directly, so that his brain went white and he was shouting something. He was barely keeping it together, scales glinted through his skin as his body twisted, as he was undone. He was losing a war to a building sensation, a kind of growing pressure that shrank his awareness of the world down to nothing else, save the sight of Aziraphale above him.

Aziraphale was coming apart too. Mouth open, brows not quite furrowed—he might have been praying, only all he was saying was Crowley’s name.The space around them shimmered with light and wings half-seen and a brilliant, familiar light that felt like home. It was the ethereal light that had guided him through the storm. His Grace was severed and gone, but somehow he could still see Aziraphale, brighter and brighter as that feeling built—

And then, suddenly, for Crowley there was only silence and blindness. The feeling which had been building seemed to burst, tipping him over some precipice and for a moment nothing existed except for the shudder going through his body.

When he came back to himself his breathing was ragged and a series of high, wordless sounds were riding every exhalation. He’d reached up to hold Aziraphale’s face in his hand while the angel continued thrusting his body into the quaking heat of Crowley’s, flushed and wild-eyed, until he yelped a broken and stuttered sound and fell down, gasping, clutching at Crowley’s chest with his face tucked into his neck. 

“Oh,” he continued, voice weakening. “Oh _ my _.”

Crowley just held on to him, lost in a tired haze. The world seemed so right. He usually had some niggling concerns about the state of things, but right now he couldn’t come up with any.

Aziraphale sighed into his neck again.

“I see now,” he murmured, “why they call it _ making _love”. 

Crowley groaned. “You had to go and ruin it,” he said, stroking Aziraphale’s hair. The angel nuzzled closer, and in six thousand years Crowley had never felt so safe, so solid, so much a part of this lovely world. Without thinking he let his wings slip back into reality, wrapping them both in cool, silky darkness. Aziraphale’s hands reached around his shoulders to stroke the wings where they met his skin, carding his fingers through the feathers. Marks were slowly unfurling across his body, bites and scratches and bruises.There were still more things these physical forms could do, more things to explore later.

“Do you remember Towton?” Aziraphale asked, finally breaking the soft silence. Crowley opened one eye; he hadn’t realized he’d been falling asleep just a little. 

“Hmn?” he responded.

“It would have been the, what did they call them, the Wars of the Roses—”

“Ugh, angel, you know I hated—”

“—would you _ listen. _ It was that terrible battle in the snow, outside that little town.”

Crowley remembered blood and steel and _ cold, _and he drew his wings a little tighter around Aziraphale. 

“We were both with the Lancastrians,” he said after a moment. “Bit of an oops for everybody’s Head Offices.”

“I was looking for survivors I could help after the Lancastrians were routed,” Aziraphale continued.“It was dark, and everyone left on the battlefield was dead at that point. But I was still looking. And I found _ you, _stuck under a dead horse and frozen silly. You didn’t seem to know how to miracle yourself free. I didn't fully understand at the time, but I could see you were just about useless with the cold.”

“You were pretty cross about it all,” Crowley recalled. “Said some rather sharp things while I was laying down there with my legs all bent up.” 

Aziraphale shifted, pouting unrepentantly. “Well, I got you up, didn’t I?”

“I think you berated me until I got myself up.”

“_ Anyways, _ I found us, miraculously, a little dry shephard’s hut with a fire going.” 

“And then I fell asleep in front of the fire and when I woke up, you’d left already. Good story, Aziraphale.”

“Oh, don’t be difficult. What I’m trying to tell you is, I was dreadfully worried. Afraid you’d… turn on me, or do something demonic, I don’t know. But then you just curled up with your back facing me, like you weren’t afraid of me at all. And,” he paused, searching for words. “I think that’s when I knew we’d be alright, somehow. I didn’t even know what ‘alright’ could be for us.” 

They were as close as they could get to each other under Crowley’s wings, breath mingling, limbs twined together. 

“I only left because I didn’t want to bother you somehow,” Aziraphale added earnestly after a moment. “I’d never seen you like that before. So out of sorts while sober. I was afraid you’d be upset if I stuck around.” 

That made Crowley’s heart ache a little, thinking of how they’d danced around each other, causing such well-intentioned pain, for thousands of years.

“It was lonely, wasn’t it? All that caution,” he said. Aziraphale nodded quickly, jaw working. It didn’t make him happy, to think of how Aziraphale had been as conflicted, as heartsick, as he himself had been. But there was something still so lovely about being able to say, _ yes, I felt the same. Yes, we wasted so much time, but only because we were both so afraid. The stakes were just so high. We made it in the end. _Every time he thinks it, he feels a little lighter, a little less dogged by regret and fear for the future. 

Later, they would go outside and find the grass sodden with melting snow. They’d hear on the news that the freak storm had passed. No casualties, somehow. They’d watch over Adam and his powers would continue to fade through the next several emotional upheavals.

But all that happened later. 

Before any of that came to pass, Crowley finally fell all the way asleep in Aziraphale’s arms. For once, Aziraphale did the same, and found it delectable to sleep like this—like _ lovers. _Beyond the shelter of Crowley’s wings and the warm walls of the cottage, their futures opened up, bright and new and full of one another. 

  
  



End file.
